


Ice Cream Social

by Sholio



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Season/Series 02 Spoilers, Unconventional Families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-28 20:50:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12615204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: Steve shows up to pick up Dustin after the Snow Ball, and ends up with a car full of kids.





	Ice Cream Social

When Steve pulls into the parking lot at Hawkins Middle School, the dance is breaking up, colorful little clusters of kids scattered around the door of the auditorium waiting for parents and older siblings. One of those clusters breaks away and descends on his car, all dressed up in their tiny little tuxes and tiny little dresses. He grins at how _fucking adorable_ they are, but has managed to put on a nonchalant poker face by the time he gets out of the car, because he remembers being that age and he knows how much he wouldn't have wanted to be laughed at.

There's a time and a place for making fun of these little jerks, but this isn't it.

"So you all had fun, right?" he asks, leaning a hip against the car.

"It was _awesome,"_ Dustin crows, and this seems to open the floodgates, because then they're all babbling at him, and it takes him a minute to realize it's not just overlapping chatter about the dance (though there's plenty of that, too): they seem want him to take them somewhere. All of them.

"Wait, what?"

"Ice cream," Mike says slowly, like Steve's an idiot.

"It's almost eleven at night," Steve points out. This town rolls up its sidewalks at 5 p.m.; it always has.

"My cousin works at the Ice Creamery over on Harding and she said they'll be open 'til midnight tonight on account of the dance," Lucas puts in.

"And I asked Nancy," Mike says, "and Dustin called his mom, and Will asked _his_ mom --"

"And it's okay as long as ... you know ..." Dustin waves his hands at Steve. "Responsible adult."

Oh dear lord. Is that what he is now? How. Why. _what._

"El's never had ice cream," Will says, "and that's _awful."_

Steve glances at Eleven. He's only actually met her once, at the Byers house that one night a month ago. She looks pretty normal tonight. She gives him a smile that is probably not _meant_ to suggest "I can explode your brain with my mind" but kind of does anyway.

"Please?" This from Max, who is trying to give him puppy-dog eyes. She's not very good at it.

"I'm not gonna get in trouble if you aren't here and your parents come to get you, right?" He looks at Will in particular, because he knows what Mrs. Byers can be like. He'd rather go up against another demo-dog pack.

"No," Will says, "and Jonathan's staying to help clean up with Nancy" -- Steve's heart doesn't give a sad little twist at that, it definitely doesn't -- "and Mom's here too, and Mrs. Sinclair, so --"

"-- so just drop the rest of us back here, after," Mike finishes for him.

Steve looks at all the hopeful faces turned up to him. Damn it. He twirls the keys around his finger. "Sure. Hop in."

As the kids scramble for the car doors, a gruff and all-too-familiar voice snaps "Harrington!" and Steve jumps about a foot in the air. Where the heck did the Chief even _come from?_ It takes Steve a moment to locate him, leaning on the side of a car a few vehicles over, smoking with ... is that Mrs. Byers?

"Yes, sir?"

"You'll be back here by midnight with these kids, son."

"Yes, sir."

"Or I'll come find you. You don't want that."

"Yes, sir!"

"Twelve-one-five," Eleven says, leaning out of the backseat, her eyes sparkling.

"No. No negotiation. Twelve even. You got that, Harrington?"

"Yes. Got it. Absolutely."

Mrs. Byers swoops in on Will, straightening his jacket. "Be careful, baby. Keep this on, okay? Don't get cold."

The other kids manage to drag him away from her last attempts to smooth down his hair, hauling him into the backseat. Steve piles into the driver's seat before the Chief can do a head count and realize how many kids are currently stuffed into his car. He's pretty sure some of them are sitting in laps back there. Dustin's somehow managed to claim shotgun. "Everybody in?" he asks over his shoulder. "Doors closed?"

There's an affirmative chorus, and he pulls out of the parking lot. He definitely doesn't look back at the doors of the school to see if he can catch a glimpse of ... anything he'd rather not see.

It hurts no matter how much he wants it not to. Maybe it always will. He's never had his heart broken before; he always used to be the one doing the leaving. Maybe it's something you have to go through in order to grow up. Something everyone goes through.

... or maybe he'll never find anyone else as smart and awesome as Nancy, and spend his entire life alone and miserable. Could go either way.

He wants to laugh at himself. It's Friday night at the end of the semester, and he's not out with a girl, he's not at a party, not getting drunk by his parents' pool. He spent the evening working on college applications and now he's taking a bunch of middle schoolers out for ice cream.

"Thanks, Steve," Dustin says, and when he looks over at Steve, his eyes are shining.

This prompts a chorus of thank-you's from the backseat, and one quiet, "Bitchin'."

At least the middle school nerds still think he's cool, for whatever that's worth.

And Dustin's looking at him with _that look_ (the one he still doesn't know how to cope with, like he hung the moon and stars), and it makes him think about the way the kids swarmed his car as soon as it pulled into the parking lot -- and okay, it's because they were baited in with the promise of ice cream, but it's still kinda cool. He's never had anyone look up to him before. 

Most of his friends, he's starting to realize, were there for King Steve, not for Steve Harrington. His parents have always wanted him to be something particular, something he's not sure is who he actually is or wants to be. Nancy, too -- which he never realized when he was with her, and he still misses her like breathing, but there's also a certain kind of ... freedom, almost, to be able to stop running every important decision in his life past the mental Nancy in his head, the one he was never quite enough for. (Knowing that she was probably doing the same thing, feeling the same way, doesn’t really help. It just makes him sad.)

But for these kids, just plain Steve Harrington -- high school senior with no specific plans past graduation, mediocre student, ex-boyfriend of one Nancy Wheeler -- _is_ enough, and that's ... kind of awesome, actually? Not that he'd ever admit it to the little rugrats. But. It is.

And yeah, things aren't okay, not quite yet.

But he's pretty sure they're gonna be.


End file.
